"Please, God, put sense in the heads of these poor people!" Dave breathed softly to himself. "Tell them what they should do for the sake of France, and...."
Dave Dawson never finished that prayer. At that moment there came to his ears a new and entirely different sound. At first he could think only of tons of brick sliding down a slanting tin roof. Then suddenly he knew what it was, and in that same instant the rising hysterical scream of the passing throngs echoed his own thought.
"Les Boches! Les Boches! Take cover at once!"
Like thousands upon thousands of stampeded cattle the refugees broke ranks and went scattering madly and wildly in all directions. Carts and wagons were left where they had come to a halt on the road with their horses, or oxen, or dogs standing dumb eyed and drooping in their tracks. Dave stayed where he was for an instant, not moving an inch, and his eyes fixed upon the cluster of dots streaking down from the blue sky high overhead. In the twinkling of an eye they ceased to be dots. They became planes! German planes. Heinkels, and Messerschmitt 110's, and Stuka dive bombers. Winged messengers of doom howling down upon the road choked with wagons and carts, and countless numbers of helpless refugees.
Even as Dave saw them the leading ships opened fire. Tongues of jetting red flame spat downward, and the savage yammer of the aerial machine guns echoed above the blood chilling thunder of the engines. Tearing his eyes from that horrible sight Dave glanced back at the road. It was still filled with frantic men, women, and children, and at the spot directly under the diving planes bullets were cutting down human lives as swiftly as a keen edged scythe cuts down wheat.
His feet rooted to the ground, Dave stared in horror. Then suddenly one of the diving Stukas released its deadly bomb. The bomb struck the ground no more than twenty feet from the edge of the road. Red, orange, and yellow flame shot high into the air. A billowing cloud of smoke filled with dirt, and dust, and stones fountained upward. Then a mighty roar akin to the sound of worlds colliding seemed to hammer straight into his face. The next thing he realized he was flat on his back on the ground gasping and panting for air while from every direction came the screams of the wounded and the dying.
The screams seemed to release a hidden spring inside of him and make it possible for him to set himself into action. He scrambled to his feet, stared wild eyed up at the diving planes and shook his fist in white heat anger.
"You'll pay for this!" he shouted. "You'll pay for this if it takes the Allies a thousand years. And I'll do my share in helping them too!"
As the last left his lips he suddenly saw an old woman, almost bowed down by bundles, trying feebly to get away from the road and out from under the roaring armada of diving death. She took a few faltering steps and then stumbled to her knees. One withered hand was stretched out in mute appeal to the others to help her up, but no one paused to give her aid. Stark fear had them all in its grasp and none could be bothered about the misfortunes of the other.
The old woman was only one in thousands and thousands, but Dave had witnessed her sad plight and so his movements were instinctive. He leaped forward and went dashing to her side. With one hand he grabbed her bundles and the other hand he put under her arm.